


sleep, the very counterfeit of death

by darkesky



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Post-Season/Series 02, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:08:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkesky/pseuds/darkesky
Summary: *spoilers for ALL of season two*The jump made everything worse.The second they arrived in the mansion again, Diego cursed as something snapped in the leg the tractor ran over. His leg buckled, the pain tripling until it became a steady rhythm pounding through his head. As he staggered towards the table, the air buzzing around him, he gripped it hard enough it felt like his fingers would bleed. The world flickered in and out around him.Five slurred something out—wit or bit or shit—and Diego lifted his head in time to see him fall backwards. Allison rushed over, catching him before he hit the ground, and he saw blood trickling down his face.Vanya sank to the floor across the table, mumbling. When Klaus reached over to her, trying to steady her, she instead leant against his legs and took deep, rattling breaths that made Diego’s lungs hurt.---The siblings recover after another time jump.
Relationships: Allison & Ben & Diego & Number Five | The Boy & Klaus & Luther & Vanya
Comments: 32
Kudos: 398
Collections: The Umbrella Academy





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> can i just say how much i LOVE the umbrella academy? God, I'm in love with it sooooo much. All of the characters own my heart, I'm just saying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can i just say how much i LOVE the umbrella academy? God, I'm in love with it sooooo much. All of the characters own my heart, I'm just saying

The jump made everything worse.

The second they arrived in the mansion again, Diego cursed as something  _ snapped  _ in the leg the tractor ran over. His leg buckled, the pain tripling until it became a steady rhythm pounding through his head. As he staggered towards the table, the air buzzing around him, he gripped it hard enough it felt like his fingers would bleed. The world flickered in and out around him.

Five slurred something out—wit or bit or shit—and Diego lifted his head in time to see him fall backwards. Allison rushed over, catching him before he hit the ground, and he saw blood trickling down his face. 

Vanya sank to the floor across the table, mumbling. When Klaus reached over to her, trying to steady her, she instead leant against his legs and took deep, rattling breaths that made Diego’s lungs hurt.

Luther stumbled as he reached for something on the table. He lifted a paper up, and Diego stared at him, praying the stars would disappear soon. They needed as many people as possible, and he doubted either Vanya or Five could help right now… Just in case things went to shit again. “April 2nd, 2019… We did it. It’s over. We can… Take a second to lick our wounds.”

“Good, good!” Klaus clapped, jumping a few times. Diego scowled at him and his loud,  _ loud  _ voice, but he seemed to miss it. “Because I know a  _ few  _ people who could certainly need a drink! I’m one of them! C’mon, Van, let’s get shitfaced and then we can take a nap!”

“Klaus.” Luther nodded towards Diego, or maybe he nodded towards Five. “I think we should get Mom.”

“Or Pogo,” Allison said, voice tight. 

Diego huffed out a breath. “Holy shit, I forgot…”

Someone’s steps echoed through the library, the vibrations splitting through the air. He winced and slumped further, bent over enough to shove his overheated forehead against the cool table. He didn’t even look. Who else could be in the Academy? Pogo?  _ Mom?  _ Either way, he’d be safe.

Something banged to the ground. “B-Ben?”

_ Ben? _

“You’re not welcome here.”

Diego forced his head up enough to see, cheek still stubbornly staying stuck. Between the overexertion and the adrenaline crash, he didn’t know how much longer he could stay conscious. But…

But there was  _ Ben,  _ an older voice than he ever heard, an older face than he ever saw, an older cruelty which never belonged to him. Despite the literal monster living inside of him, he never succumbed. He remained the light of the Academy, the hope, and with his death, he stole all of those. 

Now, he didn’t look hopeful. He stood there, five figures and a glowing green cube over his shoulder. A scar swiped across his face, and his hair hung in his eyes. And while the others remained hidden in the shadows, just out of reach, he didn’t think he recognized any of them. It wasn’t… It wasn’t  _ them.  _

Diego reached out, blindly, as if he could touch Ben. It fell back to the surface of the table when his brother’s lip curled into a smile. He nodded over his shoulder, unseeing of the rest of the family. “Father, what would you like us to do?”

This couldn’t be Ben. No matter how many scenarios his mind forced him into—alternate timeline, alternate dimension, alternate  _ something— _ Ben never could be this jaded, this willing to fight. This was his long-dead brother, the one who jumped at shadows, the one who hated his powers with every fiber of his being, the one who helped him with his stutter, the one he talked to not even twenty-four hours ago when he possessed Klaus.

Ben, the one with murder in his eyes.

Luther placed a hand on his shoulder, the weight of his touch making him shudder. “Calm down, Diego. It’s not a fight yet.”

And then, a deceptively innocent voice drifted over his head, detached from the situation. He stiffened on instinct, muscles tensing for a fight, before knives threaded through his blood. He gasped as black flooded his vision, and his legs buckled from beneath him. Someone grabbed his middle and kept him upright.

“We don’t tolerate intruders in the Sparrow Academy… Though I can’t say this was wholly unexpected,” his father said.

Allison found her voice first, and she stepped forward despite still struggling to hold onto Five. The little shit looked  _ dead,  _ sagging there in her arms with his eyes fluttered shut and blood still streaking down his face. “We can… We can just leave. Just… You have to let us go. We won’t cause problems. We don’t want a fight.”

“Father.” Ben took a step towards Allison, the threat clear. Luther practically dropped him in his haste to reach Allison, and Diego collapsed towards the ground. There, he found Vanya staring at him, eyes flickering back and forth between that unnatural silver and the sorrowful brown. “What would you like us to do with these assholes?”

“You don’t want to cause problems? I’m afraid it’s too late for that.” Their father approached, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Vanya. She wanted something, something with  _ him,  _ but he didn’t know what it could be. Her eyes flickered silver, longer this time, before she started inching closer to him. 

Luther stepped in front of Allison as Vanya continued to make her way across the table. Nobody noticed them, the two on the floor, the two posing no threat. “Dad, we don’t want to start anything. We’re just… Surprised. This is our home.”

“It’s not.”

He managed to move, choking out a pained gasp, before she was close enough their legs brushed. She leant in then, voice hot on his ear as she strained to make sure nobody else heard. “You stopped bullets, didn’t you?”

“I’d normally allow such a pitiful group to go. There is no point in such needless violence.”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, knocking their heads together in some strange parody of their interaction on Sissy’s doorsteps.

“But we can both agree this is not a normal situation. These are the ones who messed with the timeline in the first place… These are the greatest embarrassments known to the world.”

Vanya’s eyes flashed silver again before she snatched his hand. “Help me stop the world.”

_ “What?” _

“For that,” their father said, interrupting the panicked thoughts starting to run through his head, “we cannot allow any version of them to run amok. Children?”

Diego sensed it coming before it landed.

He threw out a hand, the air vibrating and echoing and  _ burning,  _ but he stopped it anyway. In the air hovered an assortment of knives and that damned green cube. “I d-d-don’t know if you heard, but p-projectiles are kinda m-m-m-my thing.”

And next to him, Vanya gasped as her eyes burned that soulless silver, trapping the rest of them. It felt… Weird. He felt each projectile as acutely as he felt his knives, but now, someone curled their hands on his. They halted everything else, and they blended, and they mixed, and for a second, he didn’t know where he ended and Vanya began.

Vanya’s voice rang out. “We need to run.”

“Right…” 

Diego felt someone tug on him, but he gritted his teeth and doubled down on his power. If he lost focus, hell would break loose. 

Right now, though, he and Vanya stopped the world.

-

“This doesn’t look good,” Klaus announced the second they stumbled into the motel. Allison Rumor-ed their way into this one, and Luther ran off to raid a pharmacy and a Goodwill. Now, they arranged the three siblings who passed out somewhere along the journey.

Klaus wished he could’ve been one of them. Instead, he struggled to carry Vanya in the car as she slowly lost her hold on her powers. Luther scooped up Diego, and Allison dragged Five out. They left an impressive trail of blood as they snatched someone’s car (which, to be fair, could they be blamed? Next time, those dumbasses shouldn’t leave the keys in their cars! Honestly!).

And that brought them to the here and now… A motel room with two tiny beds and a pull-out couch. They dumped Five and Diego in the same bed, and Vanya got one of her own. They’d probably sleep in a similar arrangement tonight… Or they’d be running for their lives again. If he would’ve known, he would’ve worn better shoes.

He even lost the cowboy hat!

Allison sighed in the bathroom, loud enough to be heard through the mostly closed door. “No shit, Sherlock. I don’t know what happened… I don’t get any of this.”

“That makes two of us!” He bounced over to her, flinging the door open. She flinched before tossing a wet rag at him. With a wink, he plopped down on Five’s side, reaching up to pat down the blood. What the old man did to give himself such a nasty cut on his temple (and every  _ other  _ cut he found which oozed blood slowly) was beyond Klaus. Then again, he missed half the fight talking to the ghosts.

She joined him a few seconds later, leaning against the wall. “Klaus, what are we going to do? Can’t anything go right for us?”

“Of course not! C’mon, we’re the Umbrella Academy! Who are we if we’re not in pain and suffering?” Klaus forced some of Five’s bangs out of his face. He wondered if he could tie it back like a little unicorn. Oh, he wondered if Luther would get some bandages with cartoons on them; that way, they could  _ really  _ make Five look like a toddler.

He turned to tell Ben that before freezing. 

Luther burst in the next moment, and he appreciated the change of mood as his brother bustled in with plastic bags draped around his arms. Klaus got up, pouting. “C’mon, Lulu, you know plastic’s bad for the environment.”

Luther only hummed in response, tossing them onto the desk across from the sofa. “I got everything we could need. Bandages, painkillers… Enough stuff to wrap up Diego’s leg since we can’t bring him to a hospital.”

“Okay. You take Diego, I’ll take Vanya. And Klaus, do you have Five?”

“Of course I do! I’ll make the old man feel  _ great  _ when he wakes up.” He pushed away any remaining thoughts about Ben before bounding over to the bags. “Any chance you bought any booze?”

“Klaus…” Allison started, hesitating. 

He threw up his hands. “What? I was asking for the patients… It might be a better painkiller!”

“No booze. We’ll have to do this the old Academy way.” Luther frowned as he said it, but he shook his head and cleared his throat. “Okay. What’s the likelihood of Diego waking up and stabbing me?”

“He is a little shit,” Klaus said at the same time Allison snorted and said, “no way he will.”

“I’m going with Allison then.” He offered her a soft smile, and Klaus resisted the urge to vomit. Instead, he focused on getting the band-aids (with Spongebob! Five would kill him, but he’d regret absolutely  _ nothing)  _ and the smallest clothes possible. It was a pair of sweatpants that would probably still go over his feet, a shirt with some math pun, and a red hoodie. Five would hate every part of this ensemble. He grabbed the thread and needle buried at the bottom too.

Klaus was going to enjoy this.

As he settled back down next to Five, wiping away the rest of the blood to make out where the cut was, he hummed. “Remember when I used to have the steadiest hands for sutures?”

“Was that before or after you got drunk as a skunk after every mission?” Allison tugged off Vanya’s heavy winter coat and tossed it aside. She held her hand up, and Luther tossed her a set of band-aids with Paw Patrol on them. She stared. “Were there no other options?”

“I did the best I could! Do you know how weird I looked going through self-checkout? I thought they were going to call the police on me.” He reached down and ripped a cardboard box in half. Since they couldn’t risk going to an actual doctor, he must be using those to help splint it. The true test would be keeping Diego from moving. “And Klaus, I’m pretty sure  _ I  _ had the steadiest hands for sutures.”

Allison and Klaus managed to maintain eye contact for five seconds before they both burst out laughing.

She waved a hand in his direction. “Nobody  _ ever  _ went to you for stitches! You’d break the needle!”

“I wouldn’t!” Luther gestured at Five. “I bet he’d trust me more than Klaus.”

“No offense, big bro, but I doubt it. He’d probably like to do them himself because he’s a masochist.” He got up to sanitize the needle in the bathroom sink. It’d have to be enough, and hopefully, he wouldn’t get it infected. He didn’t even know what an infected head wound would look like, but considering how often Five was in a pissy mood to begin with? Klaus did  _ not  _ want to see if they added to the issue.

When he got back out, Luther lobbed a pillow at his head. Klaus barely ducked in the time. “What’s  _ that  _ for?”

“I could stitch up wounds!” Still, a worn smile started to inch its way across his face. 

Klaus rolled his eyes. “I mean, you be my guest. But, like, Five’s just a complicated sequined jacket, right? And I’ve done dozens of those. You should’ve  _ seen  _ my followers, Ben can—”

The silence hung after that. He snapped his mouth shut, keeping the rest of the words from slipping out. Instead, Klaus sat down next to Five and threaded the needle. It’d leave a nasty black wound, but it’d have to be good enough. Otherwise, his brother would keep bleeding everywhere, and it’d put a damper on the mood.

Halfway through the stitches, Vanya started to stir. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Allison said, quieter, calmer. He wondered if she always spoke that way to Claire… He still hadn’t met his niece. She once insisted the only way he could see her was if he stayed sober and went to rehab, and every time he attempted, the ghosts got too bad to attempt to get to that side of the family. He was pretty sure the only aunt Claire officially met was Vanya, and that was before the book—

He started laughing before he could help himself.

Vanya rolled over on the bed, obviously exhausted, but a smile found its way there anyway. “What’s happening?”

“Your… Your fucking  _ book,”  _ he wheezed out as he finished up the stitches. He slapped a Spongebob band-aid on top for good measure before getting to the rest of the cuts, bruises, and scratches littered across his body. “I didn’t talk to you for so long because of a  _ book,  _ and now we stopped two apocalypses together.”

“Oh… I… I forgot about that.” She furrowed her brow. “I’m sorry, by the way.”

“I never read it,” Luther said. “And I’m assuming it hasn’t been published, so I won’t get a chance to.”

“It’s a fascinating read… Really tells you how dear old Dad treated us. And she didn’t even have the worst details.” Klaus maneuvered Five into a sitting up position, tugging off the dusty, blood-stained jacket. No matter how much Five loved that stupid thing, it’d be going into the trash this time around. What was it Diego called them again? Team Zero? Yeah… They’d need jackets for that instead.

Allison helped Vanya up, leading her towards the bathroom, as Luther set Diego’s leg. As the sickening crack filled the air, Diego spluttered back to life, moaning. “W-w-what the hell?”

“Sorry. Thought you’d stay out longer.” Luther offered an apologetic smile as he placed his hand on Diego’s chest, keeping him from rising the rest of the air.

He glared up, but as he talked, his eyelids drooped shut. “You m-m-motherfucker could’ve w-waited to…”

He was out before he finished the sentence.

Klaus laughed lightly as Luther continued to wrap up the leg. His brother paused for a second. “What did the book leave out exactly?”

“A shit ton… Where to start?” This was when he’d look to Ben, and Ben would help him. The two of them read it together through rehabs, but Ben always read so much  _ faster  _ than him. He’d comment on the second page before he even got through the first page. Vanya wrote densely too. He didn’t know half of the vocabulary before.

Luther shrugged. “What’s the worst detail?”

“The mausoleum.” He buttoned Five’s shirt, and he cringed at all of the bruises littering his torso. He could count every single rib there too. “God, I fucking hated that place. But I could never stop Dad from putting me there.”

“The maus… Oh.” To his credit, he glanced away and looked embarrassed. “Yeah, I don’t think she ever knew about that one. I… I, uh, didn’t really know much about it. Ben told me once, but…”

“It’s fine. The past is past, right?” He added something in French, which was complete gibberish, but judging by the confusion on Luther’s face, he didn’t remember French anyway. He could decide how to interpret that. 

Vanya laughed as she exited the bathroom, still using Allison to help stay upright. She donned an oversized black sweater dress, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and black tights. “The past doesn’t seem to be staying in the past.”

“You’re just saying that because you miss your missus.” Klaus waggled his eyebrows. “Speaking of which, can I just say I called it in front of all of you? I told you she liked girls, and none of you believed me!”

“It’s a recent development,” Allison said as she pushed her towards the bed. Vanya laughed again as she stumbled the rest of the way before climbing in. 

She paused before saying, completely solemnly, “I could sleep through the apocalypse right now. That’s how tired I am.”

“Amen to that!” Allison paused. “Do you boys need help with the babies of the family?”

“I’m not a baby,” Vanya protested.

Klaus snorted. “You’re one of them. What can I say? Me, Allison, and Luther have always been the mature ones in the family.”

“We got it… Get some sleep.” Luther glanced down at Diego. “We have a big morning ahead of us.”

“What are we doing?” Allison asked after a second.

He shrugged. “Doing what we keep doing. Saving the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might turn into a three-shot, i'm still debating about it haha, but i do think we'll find out in the future their powers are stronger when they work together, and Vanya and Diego's powers are RIGHT THERE and they're lowkey similar so... That and whump inspired me to write this fic to begin with.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh i was NOT expecting all of this positive feedback when i woke up this morning, and it definitely lit a fire under my ass to write another chapter. That and i just wanted to write more five whump because honestly, we need more of him and a caring sibling.

Some things never changed.

Allison woke up before anyone else, and a weird memory of childhood floated around as she pushed out of the bed. She always woke up before anyone else. Maybe it came from trying to get to bed first. Back then, she had a whole, elaborate beauty routine which included begging (or Rumoring) one of the boys to smuggle supplies back for her. Either way, she’d sit in her room, doing her hair, waiting for sounds of life outside to go join the rest of the family.

Right now, she doubted any of them would stir soon. Maybe she’d try to get breakfast food from the nearby grocery store. They made Luther go to one farther away because they needed more than crappy food, but she could get in and out without anyone noticing her. At the very least, she could get coffee for a certain someone.

As she went to the desk, sitting there, she studied all of them. The days after Ben died, she used to count all of them, again and again. And then, she’d go up to her room and start rattling off Rumors until her voice ached.  _ I heard a rumor Ben didn’t die. I heard a rumor Five came back. I heard a rumor my family was whole.  _

All she learned was she couldn’t break reality.

Vanya stirred a little, flipping over and huffing. With Allison’s absence in the bed, she reached out and tugged more of the blankets on her. She resisted the urge to laugh. She always knew Vanya would be a blanket hog… And it soured a moment later when she realized Vanya never went on one of these missions with them before now. It took an apocalypse—it took  _ two— _ for them to start acting like good siblings.

Luther and Five took the next bed. They originally meant for Luther to take the pull-out, but two seconds of him sitting on it almost led to it collapsing. Five still hadn’t moved, but his chest still rose and fell. She counted it for a few seconds, the steady breaths he took, and let it ease her nerves. No matter how old he  _ might  _ be, he would always be her baby brother. Anyone after Number Three was technically younger than her though she suspected Reginald went based on the order he stole them—sorry, adopted them.

And on the pull-out, Klaus spooned Diego. While Diego hadn’t woken up since cursing out Luther, a smile spread across his face in his sleep while Klaus continued to pull him closer. Neither of them appeared… Upset. And for a moment, she could pretend everything was alright with all of them.

Then, something blue started to pulse at the corner of her vision.

“Five…?” She hurried to his side, grabbing his wrist. His portals started to manifest, flickering and pulling, but his eyes remained shut. “Five, what are you doing, sweetie?”

Sweetie just slipped out, and she forced her blush away. It reminded her too much of working with Claire. She never thought growing up she’d get a maternal instinct. After all, being raised by a robot and an ape had to put them back several steps, but there it was. If she could just work things out without Rumoring anyone, she could be one of the better moms she knew. 

The portal continued growing. She patted his cheek, ignoring the anxiety starting to churn in her gut. “Hey, Five. You gotta get up if you want to use them. Look, we can even get some coffee. Doesn’t that sound good?”

They teleported.

She never lost her grip on him, but she staggered upon landing. Her stomach churned, and whatever she ate back in the  _ sixties  _ threatened to come out (and Jesus, had they really not eaten since then?). Reaching out, she clutched him closer to her chest as he started to flail around.

His eyes flew open, dilated to hell and glassy. “Allison.”

“Five… Where’d you bring us? Can we go back to the motel room?” She tried to focus on him, but her attention got called away to other areas around her. Judging by the nip in the air, they were outside, and with the way the wind pushed against them, she’d guess they were on a rooftop somewhere. The skyline looked the same anywhere, though, and she had no way of getting them back to the motel. Not subtly, at least.

He shook his head, panting. “N-no. No. No room. We gotta… The apocalypse. Stop it.”

“We stopped it, remember?” She cupped his face, forcing him to look her in the eye.

His vision went straight through her as if it was Klaus talking to one of his ghosts. “No, we couldn’t… We didn’t. You’re not here. You’re dead.”

“I promise you, I’m not.” Without breaking eye contact, she grabbed his hand and pressed it against her wrist. He fumbled, fingers pressing against the skin desperately, but she let him. It wasn’t like he had the strength to bruise her right now. “Do you feel that, Five? That’s my pulse. Everyone’s fine. We stopped it…  _ You  _ stopped it. You saved everyone.”

“Allison…” Leaning forward, he pressed his head against her shoulder. A few seconds later, she felt something wet there. Blood? Tears? God, she hated she couldn’t decide between the two. How fucked up did their lives become again? “We gotta stop it… I can’t watch you die again.”

“Again?” The word slipped out before she could stop it.

He nodded. “For the… Uh… The fourth time…”

“The  _ fourth  _ time?” Allison pushed him back, studying his face, and she flinched at how  _ young  _ he looked. Klaus shoved him in that bright red hoodie and sweatpants, and both dwarfed him. His hair stuck up in every direction, and with the way his bottom lip wobbled, he looked like he could be Claire’s age. “Oh, Five.”

“I can’t do it,” he repeated.

Folding him into a hug, she let him cry for a few more seconds. Should she tell him about the Sparrow Academy? Soon? While Diego and Vanya both passed out afterwards, they fended them off. She still remembered the shock across those imposters’ faces when they pulled it off. They might’ve been frozen, but she could recognize hatred hardening someone. Those people intended to hunt them to the ends of the earth because their father requested they did just that.

She didn’t think she was ever that loyal to him, but… But she remembered Rumoring her siblings on his behalf. Once, she told Diego he didn’t have a stutter, but he didn’t speak for a week instead. She told Klaus he didn’t smoke weed, so he broke into cocaine. She told Five he didn’t disobey Father, and he drifted around all week, lost and confused. And she told Vanya she was just ordinary, and she ruined any chance of a happy childhood.

Would she kill someone just because he commanded it? If Ben hadn’t died? If Five hadn’t disappeared? Because, despite herself, she counted the Sparrow Academy. And they still had all seven members if they counted that weird floating cube. They hadn’t lost anyone. They succeeded where they all had failed. Hell, Ben hadn’t even died.

“Five,” she murmured into his hair, waiting for him to quiet down some, “sweetie, we need to get back to the others. Don’t you want to see them? All alive and well?”

“Is… Where are they?” He glanced up at her.

She hesitated, glancing around, before giving him the location of the motel. He must’ve known about it already because he nodded. One time, when they were ten, the whole family (excluding Luther and Vanya) snuck out to spend a night away from Father. He punished them the second they came back, but it was worth it… Hopefully. She didn’t face a punishment beyond getting sentenced to her room. She knew both Diego, Ben, and Klaus got their special training, and Five came back, bleary-eyed and slurring his words.

He really loved her best… Or second-best. It made her skin crawl, looking back on it. Back then, she loved the special treatment, and she exploited it any way she could. If it meant she neglected her siblings a few times, she never minded.

She should’ve minded.

The portals fizzled out by Five’s hands, and he half-sobbed, half-exhaled. “I can’t… I’m out of juice.”

“We need to get back. I won’t be able to carry you the rest of the way.” Not if they wanted to keep the Sparrow Academy off their trail. If they teleported, she doubted they’d be able to track them down. She knew none of their powers though. Lila, apparently, could mimic any of theirs, and if that wasn’t the most powerful one she could think of… Then again, she wouldn’t do any good on her own. 

Five shook his head. “N-no, I can’t. I can’t. Allison, please, I don’t—”

“Can I try something?” she interrupted. 

He glanced up at her, still crying. When he recovered from the concussion, he’d be embarrassed… Or he wouldn’t remember. She doesn’t know what she hoped for. “T-try what?”

“A Rumor.” It toed the line between bending reality and bending something she could, but it was the only thing she could think of. And even though using them made her feel nasty, she prayed it’d work out for the best anyway. Nobody else feared their powers in the way she did. Klaus and Ben both worried they’d swallow them whole, leaving nothing left. She worried she’d lose herself in her effort to claim the world, and she hated she couldn’t resist the urge of power.

He nodded, slowly. 

She kissed his forehead, one of the spots without a Spongebob band-aid. “Okay.  _ I heard a rumor…” _

His eyes glazed over, and her breath hiccuped. She didn’t realize she made people look like Vanya. That, or she never really thought about it that way. When the silver started to fade, she got the rest out.  _ “I heard a rumor you had enough juice to teleport us back to the motel room.” _

The portal grew and popped around them.

-

Luther sprang up the second Allison and Five arrived back. When he woke up, he expected everyone would still be around. Allison always woke up first, so he anticipated she would take a shower to get all of the grease and grime off. God knew he wanted to do that, but he figured he’d let his sisters and Klaus go first. They cared more about those types of things than him.

“Where’d you go?” he asked as they stumbled. Allison kept one hand curled around his wrist, keeping him from jumping again. Five staggered around as she tugged him towards Diego and Five’s pull-out couch. 

She held up a hand to silence his question and then shook Klaus until he woke up. “Hey, bro. Any chance I can convince you to add Five to the cuddle puddle? He’s a little…  _ Jumpy  _ right now, and Diego probably won’t mind.”

“Yeah! Of course! He can share the love!” Klaus scooted back from Diego before pausing, studying something on Five’s face. He couldn’t see his oldest brother’s face, but it gave Klaus pause. Then, he practically shoved him in between him and Diego, and he could hear someone sniffling— _ Five? Five was crying?  _ What had happened in their little gathering?

At some point, Vanya slid up behind him, and Allison smiled at her first before glancing at Luther. Then, she gestured for the two of them to huddle towards the window, as far away from the others as possible. “He’s a little disorientated. Head injuries and our powers don’t exactly mix well.”

“I sense a story.” Vanya smiled to herself. “I’ll have to ask them about that later. Is Five okay though?”

“He thought we were back in an apocalypse. Hell if I know which one these days.” Allison laughed and ran a hand through her hair.

He smiled at her, trying to calm her down a little. “Hey, you were a good sister. I’m glad if anyone got taken along for a ride, it was you. I’m sure Five will appreciate it when he’s a little less… You know.”

“He’s going to be so embarrassed.” Allison glanced back at him. 

Diego must’ve woken up because he shifted to face Five, and now the three of them talked in low tones. Five still hiccuped and sobbed, but Klaus practically smothered him in a hug. He was calming down, slowing down. He’d probably be unconscious soon enough, and Luther knew he should be concerned about that.

He got taken down by bricks collapsing on him last night, and he still managed to get up and fight Lila despite that. Luther didn’t know if he could’ve pulled that off, and he was almost the one who got trapped. He thought Five had died at first. Now, he wondered if he should’ve been more considerate. Instead, he went straight to Allison, who gasped for breath no matter how much he tried to help her.

When he woke up, everything  _ ached.  _ Getting thrown through the wall did a number on him, but it didn’t hurt worse than letting someone beat him up in the ring. It didn’t hurt worse than getting his life force drained out of him by Vanya. And, according to Allison, it didn’t hurt worse than Vanya accidentally draining their life forces in the government buildings. 

Luther was meant to be the leader though. He sat on the edge of the bed and nodded at Allison. “We need a plan.”

“A plan?” Vanya leant against the wall, raising an eyebrow. “For what? Taking down the Sparrow Academy? Correcting the timeline? Going back to our old lives and hoping we didn’t change things too much?”

“Do you think there’s a version of us six out there still? Because our Ben is dead, but their Ben is still kicking. Do you think I’m, like, in Dallas?” Allison scrunched her face slightly, and he knew she was trying to remember what country she came from. Grace tried to give them names based on their country of origin, but with the notable exception of Klaus and Vanya, they couldn’t pinpoint it to an exact country.

Then, Luther felt a spark of panic. “Uh, if there is, we aren’t meeting them. Trust me. You… You don’t want to know.”

“Well, now I want to know.” Vanya smiled.

Allison nodded slowly. “Okay, good to know. We can’t use ourselves as resources. But… I don’t even know what to do here. We’re the problems. We’re the outsiders.”

“We messed up the timeline…”

“Hey! Look at the bright side of things! At least we didn’t cause an apocalypse this time!” Luther glanced at Five despite himself, waiting for his brother to add a  _ yet  _ or some condescending comment about how they caused it anyway. Instead, it seemed he finally fell asleep, and Klaus was getting up to come talk to them. Great, that’s  _ exactly  _ what Luther needed right now.

Diego started to get up too, but Allison shook her head. “Someone needs to stay with Five to make sure he doesn’t teleport when he wakes up again… And you  _ definitely  _ are not getting up with that leg.”

“Thanks, M-m-mom.” Diego rolled his eyes.

She blew him a kiss.

Klaus joined the group by sliding up next to Vanya and forcing her into a hug. “So, what are we discussing today, fam? I feel like we have a lot of options! We have the crying five-year-old over there, we have all of our failed love lives from the sixties, and we have emo Ben who wants to murder us! Oh, and our dear old Dad hasn’t died yet, but he wants to make sure we all die!”

“We need to figure out a game plan,” he said again. 

Klaus furrowed his brow. “For what? Not dying?”

“Thank you! I think we just need to talk to the Sparrow Academy again… Maybe explain it to them. We don’t want to cause them harm, we just wanted to return home. So, now we just need to figure out how to get home again.” Allison bit down on her lip and glanced away. Then, her eyes grew wide. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait, holy shit.”

“Holy shit…?” Vanya reached out to Allison, but she moved and started pacing instead.

She groaned. “We need to go to the library first. I need to figure something out.”

“What do you need to figure out? Allison, you’re okay.” He replaced Vanya in the efforts to calm down Allison. He tried to grab her and hold her to his chest, but she gave him a withering look and hesitated at the motel phone. “Allison, what’s wrong? We won’t be able to help you unless you tell us.”

“We never got adopted by our father in this timeline. Or, at least, that’s what we’re assuming. That means our lives would’ve changed… It means our parents would’ve kept us or we would’ve gone into foster care.” Allison clutched at the fabric near her heart, practically hyperventilating. The siblings exchanged eye contact, debating if they should try and help. “My whole relationship with Patrick came about because I was a movie star. If I wasn’t part of the Umbrella Academy, I wouldn’t have wanted to do that. And if I hadn’t wanted to do it, I wouldn’t have married Patrick, and I wouldn’t—”

“Claire,” he finished for her. “You wouldn’t have had Claire.”

“We don’t even know who to research!” Klaus suddenly burst. “Grace gave us our names, not our birth parents! Here, we wouldn’t be  _ Klaus Hargreeves.  _ We could be Jimmy John for all we know!”

“Shit.” Vanya leant back against the wall. “Shit, wow. We probably aren’t even in the country. The only one who got adopted from America was Allison.”

“Claire doesn’t exist.”

“We fucked up,” Luther said after a few seconds. “But I’m sure we will be able to fix it. We’re… We’re Team Zero! We can change things back!”

“We can’t keep messing with the timeline! Do you  _ want  _ to get stuck in the sixties again?”

Right as an argument started to brew, a knife whizzed past his head and almost clipped his ear. Diego had dragged himself into a sitting up position, Five wrapped around his waist. He held up a finger. “First off, nobody say anything.”

“It’s adorable though,” cooed Klaus.

Diego glared. “That counts as something. And second of all, we’re missing the obvious person to ask what we do.”

“Five?” Vanya guessed.

Luther rolled his eyes. “Your girlfriend?”

_ “Herb.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't really know where this is going but its fine everythings fine


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god thank you all so so so much! I usually individually respond to every comment, but I don't even know how to respond without just screaming and thanking you, so i'm doing it here haha. all of your comments and feedback made my day :))) thank you so so so much

Her siblings might be different people, but Vanya spent years assuming they went through life with the same experiences. Deep down, she understood their powers functioned in different ways. Yet, as a child peering through the banister, watching her family rush off together, all she could see was the damning  _ sameness  _ from them. And, by extension, all she could focus on was her own distance from them. 

Now, that sameness kept a headache building and fear boiling deep down. With Sissy and Harlan, she started to master her abilities. At the end of the day, though, she still exploded with emotion. And it  _ exhausted  _ her. She never understood why her siblings would come home from missions and crash in their bedrooms, desperate to get a few hours of sleep.

For the past day, all she did was sleep, and yet, she still wanted to crawl beneath the sheets of the motel bed despite the bed bugs and the strange rash starting to develop on her sensitive skin. 

“Tell me about the Commission,” she said instead, wrapped up with Diego and Five. In the words of her brother, albeit meant to be too soft to be heard, the three of them had become liabilities today. Even as Diego sorted out a way to find Herb and get him to visit the hotel room, he couldn’t leave his bed. Five still slept more than he woke up, and his moments of lucidness came in bits and pieces. And she just  _ hurt  _ from using her powers.

Diego shifted, a wry smile starting to play on his face. “Why? Interested in getting a job there?”

“Oh, yeah. I thought it might be an upgrade from nannying.” She spared him her own smile, and it caught him off guard. Vanya huffed out a laugh, reaching over to ruffle Five’s hair. He mumbled in his sleep and curled tighter in a ball. While he remained wrapped up in himself, his hands clutched at Vanya’s, and his back pressed against Diego’s thigh. “That or being a violin teacher.”

“It’s… Weird there. Not something I’d seriously be able to do.” He glanced down at Five before scooting in, lowering his face. “Just between you and me, I’d never fit in there. I’m not the brainy type like the little old man here.”

“You’re plenty smart—”

“I’m plenty stupid too. I wouldn’t fit in.” There, he shifted back as if he said nothing at all, and Vanya frowned at him. The door to the motel pushed open, and he lunged for one of his nearby knives before relaxing. It was just Luther and Herb, and he made a point to speak louder. “Just being there makes you feel like a gear in a machine. All of them work towards this goal, but the goal barely makes sense. What the hell does  _ maintaining a timeline  _ even mean?”

“It means,” Herb said with barely any stuttering, “avoiding situations like this.”

“Harry!” Klaus stumbled to his feet and practically buried the man in a hug.

Diego snorted. “His name is Herb, Klaus.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I like Harry too.” He flashed a bright smile as Luther physically pulled him off. Then, he glanced at all of them and let out a nervous laugh. “You six really made a mess of things, you know. And we don’t really have anyone to dispatch from HQ to help fix this mess… And we don’t really have a protocol for this—”

“What does ‘this mess’ mean?” Allison interrupted, making a point to do her air quotes as big as possible. Vanya rolled her eyes fondly. “And how do we get out of it? Because I want to go back to my daughter.”

“Er, you might find that your daughter actually doesn’t—” 

“Exist?” Her eyes flared with her telltale flames, and Vanya pitied Herb for getting on the other side of it. Honestly, getting any of her siblings mad might as well be a death sentence. “Yeah, I noticed. So I need to know how to get back to her.”

“It’s complicated… This is unprecedented.” Herb rushed over to the desk, and Klaus eased off it to allow him to rummage through the drawers. After a few seconds, he pulled out a pen and hesitated. “Do you have anything to write on—”

“Write on the walls.” Luther paused when they all shot him disbelieving looks. “What? We aren’t going to stick around!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” Vanya commented.

Diego snorted. “Isn’t most of what we do these days illegal?”

“That’s a good point. Now, I think you have to.” She glanced down when Five shifted. “He would vote for you to write on the wall too. God knows he did it enough back at the mansion.”

“Okay, so this is time.” Herb’s hand wavered as he drew a mostly straight line, cutting all of the flowery walls in half. His tremors refused to go away, though, so a rather large spike existed towards the middle, but she got the gist. She hoped. 

Luther stared. “It’s a line?” 

“Wait, wait! I know this! It’s a line segment because it doesn’t have the little arrows at the end.” Klaus leaned back, satisfied. “And you said you paid attention in class, pfft.”

“That’s, uh… I guess it’s a line segment. I meant more that it was linear. So  _ this,”  _ he reached up and slashed a vertical line through it, “was 2019 as we knew it before Five traveled back in time. And  _ this,”  _ he reached back to put another vertical line, this time on the left, “was 1963.” 

“It’s a timeline,” Allison sighed and buried her face in her hands. “You’re explaining this with a timeline.”

“It works! There’s a reason we use it!” Then, Herb drew a branching path underneath. “Here’s the problem. If you hadn’t made any drastic changes in the timeline, time would’ve proceeded as we knew it until we reached 2019. Then, when you started to make changes, it’d still work because it would be  _ your  _ future, something already set in stone. When you arrived back, it’d be the last second you were here, hypothetically, with the only difference being that Vanya didn’t cause the apocalypse. Instead, you altered the flow of time so that you can’t arrive the last second you got back because you never had a reason to leave because you never made the same choices. If that makes sense.”

“It doesn’t,” four of them said at the same time.

Vanya nodded. “I kinda get it. So, like, the Vanya of  _ this  _ 2019 never chose to pick up a violin or something like that. So she’s still running around, probably in Russia, and I’m here in the United States.”

“Guys, I need a drink.” Klaus raised a hand. “I think this would make more sense if I was drunk.”

“You know what, I don’t care. I don’t care about all of… That.” Allison swept a hand towards the timeline with its new branching path. “How do we fix it? How do we go back to the original 2019? And if you say more time travel, I will  _ actually  _ throw a fit.”

“I don’t…” Herb shuffled his feet and ducked his head.

The mood shifted on its head the second he did that, and Vanya leaned forward, heart thrumming. Wait.  _ Wait one goddamn second…  _ Luther asked before she could. “What are you saying here, Harry?”

“Herb,” Diego corrected absently, starting to fiddle with one of his knives. He tossed it up and set it through an elaborate gauntlet of twists and turns. If she didn’t know better, she’d call it annoying. Instead, she felt the anxiety starting to build, and she leaned over and grabbed his free hand. It turned her into a pretzel, trying to hold both Diego and Five and look at Herb, but she didn’t mind. “Herb, tell it to us straight.”

“Okay, okay, but I need you to put the knife away. And, uh… I need the big one to sit down.” Herb backed against the desk, a little too defensive. 

Diego squeezed her hand hard. “Herb, what are you  _ saying—” _

“Diego.” Allison’s voice already gained too many years from that one statement. She hung her head with a heavy sigh before nodding at him. She suspected the same thing Vanya started to, but she knew Allison had more to lose with the truth. “Put the knife away. And Luther, sit down. I don’t…”

He placed the knife down, but his fingers started to twitch in his lap, desperate for some escape of the energy. Luther sat down on the end of the bed, and it sagged underneath his weight. He balled his hands into fists. Allison and Klaus just watched Herb, equal parts devastated and scared.

“The 2019 you know doesn’t exist anymore… And I don’t think you can bring it back.” Herb glanced away. “I think the only logical move is to make sure you don’t come within a few miles of your current selves and then try and build a new life for yourselves here—”

“How do we  _ make  _ it exist?” Allison cut him off. 

Herb blinked. “That’s the thing—”

“How do we make it exist again? We made it disappear, we can bring it back. Nothing’s irreversible. Hell, we stopped the  _ apocalypse.”  _ She sprang to her feet. “How do we make it exist again?”

“Allison—” Luther reached out to grab her arm.

She shook her head. “My daughter’s  _ dead.” _

“Technically, she never existed,” Klaus added unhelpfully.

Allison made a noise, somewhere in between a sob and a shout, and she reached for Herb.  _ “I heard a Rumor you told me how to get 2019 back.” _

“You can’t.”

And something exploded.

-

He woke up clutching a dead body.

He nestled closer, trying to seek out the heartbeat in the warm body  _ (because it was hot, hot, hot, and he felt cold, cold, cold). _ Something brushed through his hair, too heavy, too dense. He flinched. Then, he tried to find the heartbeat. Where was it? Where… How could something so hot not be alive? 

Somehow, he peeled open his heavy eyes, and he got one glance at the body before tumbling backwards. Something else pressed against him, roping around his wrist. A sibling? No, a Commission field agent? Hazel?  _ Lila? _

“Five, Five, it’s okay—”

“Dead,” he managed to get out despite his heavy tongue. He tried to jump away from the touch, but his powers fizzled out at his fingertips. Just like when he was in the Apocalypse—

_ —and the sky opened up above him, pouring rain for the first time since he arrived. He watched as it turned the dirt to sludge, and he took his bleeding, bruised fingers and started clawing at the Earth again. He needed to bury them, needed to give them some sanctuary in death. And then, and then he could find his siblings. The ones he hadn’t found. Six and Seven. One of them had to be around.  _

_ But it was so cold. _

_ And he was so alone as the weight of the dead settled on his back. One, Two, Three, Four. Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus. Dead, dead, dead, dead— _

“Five, it’s fine…”

“G-get off me!” He tried to shake himself free of the dead who wouldn’t leave him alone. This was how Klaus felt. This was why Klaus kept getting high. This was why Klaus died with those eyes so wide, so blown out. This was why Klaus wasn’t around anymore because he died, he was gone, he was  _ alone again. _

“I can’t… We can’t risk you jumping,” the person murmured in his ear, voice too harsh, too hot against his neck. It sounded like Allison, it sounded like Grace, it sounded like the Handler.

The words wouldn’t come out, so he let out a low, desperate noise. The grip loosened, and he shot forward, landing right on top of the dead body. It moved before he could escape to jump, letting out a moan of pain as it clutched him to its still, unmoving chest. He cried out again, trying to shake himself free—

_ And the rain kept crashing down around him, blurring his surroundings, as he tried to drag Luther’s lumbering body to the pit. His brother never weighed this much in life. Death had stolen some of the air from him. It made sense; Five couldn’t breathe without choking. But he needed to get him to that pit he dug. _

_ He wrapped both hands around Luther’s wrist and pulled, harder, harder, louder than the beating of his heart. Never once did his fingers twitch. Never once did a pulse try and fight against Five.  _

_ He was trapped here; he’d never see his siblings again. _

_ And then he was tumbling to the ground, heel slipping in the mud— _

“Get off, get off, get off,” he moaned, trying to free himself from the mud and Luther’s corpse. But it didn’t weigh enough to be Luther. He twisted around, gagging and gasping, as he caught sight of his other brother. Diego, not breathing, but clutching him for dear life—If he could even say that for a dead man.

Diego’s brow furrowed. When he spoke, his words came out slurred, distorted. Broken jaw or lack of air or something, something bad enough to wipe out humanity. “Five? What’s going on, man?”

“Get off me.” He fought harder. “I don’t wanna… I can’t watch… I’m not strong enough to get you to the hole, Diego,  _ please.  _ I can’t—”

“What hole?” Diego pulled him closer to his still chest.

Behind him, someone else gasped. “Diego, you’re not breathing.”

“What?”

“You’re not  _ breathing—” _

_ And he couldn’t breathe as the rain poured down around him, as he fumbled around in the mud, unable to stand up again. He twisted around, trying to shake out his uniform, as he stared upon Luther’s still face. He owed it to his brother, but he wasn’t strong enough. And he hadn’t even gotten through Number One. But he couldn’t just leave them behind.  _

_ Because then he’d have to watch them decay from life further. Cold and empty wasn’t enough. They’d rot, they’d burn, they’d melt. He’d watch their muscles emerge, their skin shrink back, their bones appear, one by one by one. He could count every single bone in his siblings if he waited but not if he could just get them in the goddamn graves. _

_ Couldn’t he have this? Couldn’t he at least have this? _

“Fuck!” Behind him, Diego took a deep, rattling breath. “Look, Five,  _ look.” _

One of his hands roped through Five’s hair, and he gasped at the pressure building there. He tried to struggle away as Diego pressed him against him. “Please, please,  _ no. Diego, no, please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” _

_ “Listen!”  _ Diego shouted, and Five’s mouth snapped shut.

And after a few seconds, he realized what he was hearing. 

_ A heartbeat. _

Not his either. It was too steady for that, too slow still. From someone who just stopped breathing, and he slumped back against the hot, hot skin of his brother, finally giving in. 

After a few seconds, through his cracked lips and wobbly words, he managed to get it out. “You’re not dead?”

“I’m just a dumbass,” Diego murmured.

From his fragmented vision, someone eased down in front of him. It took him a few seconds to see Vanya, and he closed his eyes as her voice washed over him like a wave returning him to the ocean. It ebbed away at the franticness, clearing it until only the exhaustion and relief remained. “Hey, kiddo. You’re having a rough go of it, aren’t you? Does your head hurt? You’ve been bleeding pretty hard there.”

“Vanya…?” he croaked out, reaching out a hand blindly. She took it, and he fished around until he felt her pulse too. The whole time, he heard the thrumming in the air, a distant mumbling of voices he recognized. He didn’t know they belonged to, but he knew they meant safety. He knew they meant someone was still there for him. “Vanya, Vanya… What… What’s happening? I’m confused. I don’t… I don’t  _ get it.” _

But Vanya never died. He never found her body. And all he found of Ben was that memoir she wrote, painting a gruesome picture he never understood. A tapestry of guilt and shame shrouding the truth of Ben’s death, a truth his siblings would never answer to if he asked. He’d never understand how they lost a member because they hadn’t processed it. They simply assumed the blame and went on, trooping on like soldiers… Trooping on blindly towards their collective deaths.

She squeezed his hand. “I know. You really wore yourself out. And we can discuss it more, but you need to take this. It’ll help with the headache and the fever.”

“What… What fever?” He cracked open an eye, glancing at Diego. His older brother still clutched him to his chest almost subconsciously; he doubted his brother would ever hold him that tight if he realized. As if hearing his thoughts, Diego went red and started to push away, but Five clung, desperate to hear his heartbeat still. His and Vanya’s pulse twirled around him in a symphony of life, and if he looked away, it might disappear. “Who’s sick?”

“You are. But you’ll be okay. Here, let me help you.” She eased something up to his lips, something way too cold. He gasped out, shaking his head, but she insisted until he started drinking, clearing away the cotton and cobwebs settling in him. 

When he finished, he wanted nothing more to go back to bed, but he started shifting. Diego pulled at him. “Hey, where are you going?”

“I need—the others.” He knew it came out fragmented, but his thoughts moved too fast to process.

Suddenly, the world shifted on its axis, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he regained his bearings, they were on the floor. He still leaned back against Diego, and Vanya settled on his other side, still letting him feel her pulse.

Someone with thick hair— _ Allison— _ leant against him. Luther sat farther away, taking his other hand. And Klaus sprawled across their laps.

And all around him, he heard their pulses and heartbeats.

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Allison murmured, some tension in her voice he didn’t understand. “We’re going to save our family.”

“I…”

“You already saved us. Let us take a turn,” Vanya whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a cute but unresolved ending? more likely than you might expect
> 
> (also diego not needing to breathe? that's a talent i'm glad i know about)

**Author's Note:**

> This might turn into a three-shot, i'm still debating about it haha, but i do think we'll find out in the future their powers are stronger when they work together, and Vanya and Diego's powers are RIGHT THERE and they're lowkey similar so... That and whump inspired me to write this fic to begin with.


End file.
